During the Cold War, the Acoustic Kitty went under the surgeon’s knife to accommodate transmitting and control devices so it could listen to secret conversations in Moscow. The first cat mission was eavesdropping on two men in a park outside the Soviet compound on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C.. The cat was released nearby, but was hit and killed by a taxi almost immediately.

“If I check the soil under my shoe for pieces of DNA, most of them would be pieces of microorganisms that we don’t have the slightest idea what it is. So if we say “is there life on Mars…possibly…but nothing compared to life under your shoe…”